Spaceport!

Oh God, how did I forget to post about this? Bad Cat, bad. Spaceport: Incognito came out on Friday, and I still haven't mentioned it here. I'll go to Author Hell for this (you know that joke about author hell and heaven? In heaven, authors are chained to typewriters and constantly whipped. In hell, the same thing goes on. The difference? In heaven, you get published).

Anyway. Incognito, my contribution to the mad, seedy, sexy, exciting world of Spaceport, is out now to buy. I don't have any superlative reviews with which to convince you of its fabulousness, so I'll just have to post a blurb and hope that does the trick.

Jal is a bounty hunter. Kali is his quarry. When he finds the former socialite disguised as a cheap whore, turning tricks on Spaceport Adana, he can't believe his luck. All he has to do is return her to her fiancé, and he's rich. So what if he's sampling the wares on the trip home? It's not as if it's the first time she's traded in sex.

Except that there's a reason why Kali ran from her privileged background, and once Jal hears it, he's faced with a dilemma. Previously, knowing his skip was facing certain death would never have bothered him, but this time all the money in the 'verse won't compensate for it. Can he send her home, knowing she'll be instantly killed, or should he believe her story and help with her mission -- which might end up getting them both killed?

Besides, it's very possible that Kali knows the secret to finding the one thing Jal has been searching for all his life…

Buy it! In a wonderful feat of self-sabotage, I've also managed to neglect pimping out my next Kate Johnson book. The fourth (yes! fourth!) Sophie Green Mystery, Still Waters, will be available as an e-book tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow. Step right up, folks, for ice cream, Cornish pasties, harbour drownings, holiday villages, equestrian sabotage, soppy declarations, secret babies (oh yes!) and murder riddles. You know you want to.

RNA Summer Party

I've never quite made it to the RNA Summer Party before, although I've made the conference and Winter Party twice each, so at least now I'm a little more confident of walking in and actually seeing someone I know. This time, I at least managed not to take the wrong exit from Westminster Tube and find myself outside the Houses of Parliament (very nice, but not where I needed to be) or stack it on the pavement outside the IMechE and walk in with ripped tights and a bleeding knee, as I did last time.

I figured the problems I had last time were due to the stress of trying to be sophisticated in my mother's cocktail dress, so this time I wore my purple button boots and this dress (which I could only find an image of in black, but have altered with my shiny computer skills to give you a more accurate idea of the hot-pinkness of it). Of course, it looked more fabulous on me. It was certainly very boobilicious.



Unfortunately I forgot my camera, or I'd post pictures of the event (if anyone else has any pics, I'd love to see them!). But I do remember chatting to fellow Samhain author Jane Lovering, who came all the way from North Yorkshire (in not much longer than the time it took me to come from Essex) because she was up for the Joan Hessayon prize for authors who have gone through the RNA's brilliant New Writers Scheme and subsequently become published. Jane didn't win (congratulations must go to Giselle Green, who did), but she did attract plenty of well-wishers, who also stayed to chat to me. Hi, well-wishers!

The always effervescent Julie Cohen came to tell me she'd just sold a co-authored space-romp to Samhain, and Jean Fullerton to invite me to a meeting of the London chapter which I'll have to miss as I'm away. Jean, I know I'm always away when you mention these meetings, but it really is coincidence and I'm not trying to avoid you, honest!

Right, now I'm off to design more pretty postcards from Vistaprint. They were such a hit at the party that I'm definitely going to need more for the conference!

RITA scores

So, I didn't final in the RITA. But I did get my scores, which show I didn't do horribly badly. Well, not completely. A final score of 38.7, out of a possible 45, ain't bad at all. Two judges really loved the book, one giving a perfect score (9) and one nearly perfect (8.9). One thought it was okay (7.5) and two weren't hugely impressed (6.8 and 6.5). Probably too much sex. This, as I have argued exhaustively before, is partly my fault in entering an erotic romance in a competition run by an organisation that still hasn't decided whether it's porn or not. But I won't get into that now.

Fact is, Almost Human scored in the top quarter, so I'm fairly happy with that.

Faking it

Why is it that the bottle of Johnson's Holiday Skin I've been using bears the boast "As natural as your own tan"? If I tanned naturally, I wouldn't be faking it, would I?

A week or two ago I posted some brilliant examples of reimagined speeches, done in a Shakespeare style. Well, being the odd creature I am, I had to give it ago. Here's one of my favourite speeches (and the run-up to it) from Buffy. In places I hardly needed to change anything, which just shows you what a genius Joss Whedon really is.

Chosen Act III Scene 1

Spike We can take it back. Nay?

Buffy Nay.

Spike What sayest thou, nay?

Thou meanst ‘eventually’?

Buffy You have ever misunderstood that word.

Spike You can regain them.

Buffy Can, mayhap. Should? I am so tired.

Spike They need you.

Buffy Yea, but—

Spike ‘Tis chaos without you.

Buffy Is’t so?

Spike Aye! Aye, ‘tis. All is rank;

Bedrolls are spoiled, they all are frightened

And mean-apparelled.

Buffy Most dire.

Spike I saw little. I came to the house,

Fought with Faith, and went.

Buffy Didst thou? ‘Tis not

That I am not glad, and yet—

Spike Bid me do it, and she shall be

But a footnote in history. I will make it seem

As a painéd accident.

Buffy This is ever my sorrow. I bid,

And each time, someone dies.

Spike There are casualties in every war.

Buffy Casualties. It is too casual a word.

These girls have been slain. I am the Slayer

And I have slain my connection to them.

‘Tis my fault: connections are ever severed by me.

As you should know.

Spike ‘Tis in my recollection

We connected.

Buffy Ha!

We were never close. You wanted only

What you could not attain

Spike Is’t all you think?

Buffy Let us not go over the past.

Spike Nay, let us. I shall go over it.

I have hummed to your tune of pity

Now ‘tis my turn to sing.

Buffy Then sing, and cheer me.

Spike Thou art insufferable.

Buffy My thankings for thy help.

Spike I do not wish to cheer you—

Buffy Then what sayest thou?

Spike When I have said it, I shall know.

Thou made me angry. ‘Could not attain’,

Aye, that’s the rub.

Buffy Then I am attainable.

The pinnacle of attainment I shall be.

May I now sleep?

Spike Listen thou to me.

I have been alive longer than you

Aye, and dead longer than that.

What I have seen thou couldst not imagine;

What I have done, I implore do not.

I am known not for following my thoughts

But my blood, which rarely runs to my brain.

And so mistakes are mine to make,

Errors mine to call, by our lady.

But in a hundred years, one thing

Have I been sure of: You.

I ask you not for anything.

Say not, “I love you” as I want you

Or because I cannot have you.

It has naught to do with I.

I love what you are,

What you do, how you try.

I have seen your kindness,

Aye, and your strength. I’ve seen

The best and the worst of you.

And now I see with perfect clarity

Exactly how thou art.

Thou art a singular woman, Buffy.

Thou art the one.

Buffy I do not wish to be.

Spike I do not wish to be so pleasing

To th’eye. We all must bear our crosses.

Fun, huh?

Look, new cover!

Yes, it's been a week (or more, ahem) since I posted, but in my defence I was away. I just forgot to, er, mention that.

But anyway--look what I've got!


Spaceport: Incognito is out next Friday, 16th May. It's my first sci-fi and I'm very proud of it! I'm also delighted with this cover--isn't it gorgeous?

Accounts are boring

Not that I earn enough to pay tax, but I know the bastards can come and get you retroactively. So, I file all my receipts, expenses, royalty statements etc. in a concertina file and Excel spreadsheet. It's all incredibly, horribly boring, which is why I decided to liven things up by buying one of these to file things in:


Unfortunately, Excel doesn't come with a Pink Playboy Bunny Logo add-on. Maybe it should.

Thus he spake: a Royale with cheese.

Two very funny things from the Blogosphere.

Firstly, by way of Whedon.info, a Shakespearean re-imagining of two Serenity speeches:

Capt: A dozen years have pass'd since this took place,
And all that time hath Parliament kept hid
The secret of this world, till River here
Unearth'd it from their minds. They feared she knew.
And right they were to dread, since many more
Among the spinning worlds would know it too.
And someone has to speak for those now dead.
For divers reasons did you join my crew
But all have come together to this place.
I've in the past demanded much of you.
Today I ask yet more; perhaps for all.
For this I know, as I know anything:
That they will try again. Another world
Will be the lab for this experiment.
Or maybe they will sweep this landscape clean
And in a year or ten attempt again.
They'll swing back like the needle to the north
To the belief that they can better men.
And I hold not to that. Here from this grave
I will not run. I aim to misbehave.

- o0o -

Capt: There's more to flight than buttons, albatross,
More to the pilot's role than charts and maps.
You know the foremost rule of flying? Aye,
I know you do, since you know what I'll say
Before I part my lips.
Riv: I do, but yet
I like to hear you say it nonetheless.
Capt: 'Tis love. Though you know all the math the 'verse
Contains, if in the sky you take a ship unloved
She'll shake you off as sure as worlds turn.
Love keeps her in the air when she should fall
And tells you that she hurts before she keens.
It makes her home.
Riv: The storm is getting worse.
Capt: We will endure a while, till it disperse.

by evilrooster, apparently inspired by metaquotes's brilliant Pulp Fiction parody:

ACT I SCENE 2. A road, morning. Enter a carriage, with JULES and VINCENT, murderers.

J: And know'st thou what the French name cottage pie?
V: Say they not cottage pie, in their own tongue?
J: But nay, their tongues, for speech and taste alike
Are strange to ours, with their own history:
Gaul knoweth not a cottage from a house.
V: What say they then, pray?
J: Hachis Parmentier.
V: Hachis Parmentier! What name they cream?
J: Cream is but cream, only they say le crème.
V: What do they name black pudding?
J: I know not;
I visited no inn it could be bought.


...


J: My pardon; did I break thy concentration?
Continue! Ah, but now thy tongue is still.
Allow me then to offer a response.
Describe Marsellus Wallace to me, pray.
B: What?
J: What country dost thou hail from?
B: What?
J: How passing strange, for I have traveled far,
And never have I heard tell of this What.
What language speak they in the land of What?
B: What?
J: The Queen's own English, base knave, dost thou speak it?
B: Aye!
J: Then hearken to my words and answer them!
Describe to me Marsellus Wallace!
B: What?
JULES presses his knife to BRETT's throat
J: Speak 'What' again! Thou cur, cry 'What' again!
I dare thee utter 'What' again but once!
I dare thee twice and spit upon thy name!
Now, paint for me a portraiture in words,
If thou hast any in thy head but 'What',
Of Marsellus Wallace!
B: He is dark.
J: Aye, and what more?
B: His head is shaven bald.
J: Has he the semblance of a harlot?
B: What?
JULES strikes and BRETT cries out
J: Has he the semblance of a harlot?
B: Nay!
J: Then why didst thou attempt to bed him thus?
B: I did not!
J: Aye, thou didst! O, aye, thou didst!
Thou hoped to rape him like a chattel whore,
And sooth, Lord Wallace is displeased to bed
With anyone but she to whom he wed.

I LOVE this. Always said a lot of Joss Whedon's speeches were like poetry. A lot of his dialogue is, too. And anyone who thinks Tarantino has the franchise on gore, fast dialogue and bad language has clearly never read the Bard...

(and yes, now I'm going away to think of some of my own)

David Tennant being adorable

Just...'cos I felt like it.

Paranormal Mates Society and My Big Squishy Brain

Remember a couple of years ago I did a story for the Changeling Valentines collection, Paranormal Mates Society? Well, the stories have been collected into an anthology or three, and they're now available in print. Go grab a copy from Amazon!

Here are my author copies, which arrived yesterday, being displayed by the lovely Spike. Who is clearly so overwhelmed with awe that he's just had to have a little nap.



A week ago I did a supervised IQ test in London. I figured I'd probably get a letter back from Mensa comparing my IQ to that of a plant. Imagine my surprise when I get a letter this morning telling me I'm in the top 2% of the population as a whole (is the nation really that stupid?), which means I've been invited to join Mensa.

I tried to do the Mensa puzzle in the Express today. I failed.

New glasses

Except that I haven't got them yet, I have to wait a week. I'm not good at waiting. But anyway, I figured it was time for a change--I've had my specs two years now and they're getting a little scuffed. Plus, I'm bored. You wouldn't wear the same earrings every day for two years, would you--and glasses are a lot more noticeable than earrings (at least, than most earrings).

So, after a lot of dithering and trying to work out how much money I can borrow off my dad, I picked out two pairs (Specsavers and their 2 for 1 deal, bless them). And here for your entertainment is a (rather bad) mock-up (using images I nicked from their website) of the first pair, which I saw last year and coveted then (yes, I know, sad little life).

And the second pair, which took me aaages to pick out (Mum kept trying to talk me into the designer ones...which ain't gonna happen because the only ones I liked were the really expensive ones!). They're semi-frameless, which looks a little weird here because I couldn't be bothered to actually make a proper image. But you get the idea. I had frameless glasses before but they always felt like cheating--like I was pretending I wasn't wearing glasses. But these are quite funky, bronze semi-frames and black/turquoise arms. Shiny!

Brains, funerals and Spaceport

In that order. I think. Anyway, I know I've been absent but that pesky thing called Life kept getting in the way. I know, who'd have guessed?

First, brains. I did an IQ test on Saturday and am fully expecting a letter from British Mensa along the lines of, "Wow! We've never had results like this. It's completely astonishing. It's never happened before. How can it be that someone with your IQ is actually walking and talking? When we got your test we thought it had been filled out by brain-damaged ant."

Now the real reason I've been absent all week, which is the depressing habit I've picked up of losing grandparents. To quote Lady Bracknell, it looks like carelessness. Well, either way, there aren't any more to lose. This time the mental anguish isn't from anticipating a punch-up at the funeral (it was all disappointingly civil when my maternal grandmother died, last month), but from trying to stop my dad turning it into something from one of the more melodramatic kinds of soap operas. He keeps searching for readings and music that will be, and I'm using his word, 'tear-jerking'. Or is that two words?

Eventually I snapped and told him that if he plays Barbra Streisand singing The Way We Were, I'll give up and wait outside. Actually, I didn't, but I did tell him it was incredibly tacky. Judging from the florid verses on the sympathy cards lining the windowsill, it would probably be appreciated by the congregation, but that doesn't mean we have to stoop to anyone else's level and denigrate the dignity of the occasion. It's just that deliberately choosing 'tear-jerking' music seems to me like going around and pinching people to make them cry. If they're sad, they'll cry. It's a funeral. Unless the deceased was a horrible, horrible person, and my nannan wasn't, then people will cry. If you make people cry on purpose, then how can you believe their sorrow was genuine?

Besides, if he plays The Way We Were, the only person sobbing will be me, at such a hackneyed choice of music.

All right, rant over. Today I finished my latest Changeling story, horribly late, but see above re: Life. It's for the new Spaceport line, which is very exciting and which I can't remember if I've mentioned before. It's really the bastard love-child of many fathers, or mothers, really, and our collective love affair with Firefly and various other shiny, sexy sci-fi shows (um, others were mentioned but I haven't seen them so I can't, er, remember). Mine is called Incognito and features a bounty hunter on the raggedy edge and a fallen socialite with blue tattoos. And a couple of very clever space cats.

And more will follow, because the cover is in progress and it's going to look gorgeous...

I'm officially grandparentless

Yeah, sorry it's been more than a week since I posted. Nothing much happened, and, well, then something did happen. My dad's mum died this afternoon. Again, it was totally expected, and my dad was actually there, which is nice. And at least time there are no family feuds...that I'm aware of...so it should all be straightforward.

I'll blog in a bit about the return of Doctor Who and the end of Torchwood (will there be more? Will there? What about Owen, I was just starting to fancy him!). And about Spaceport.

Later.